October, 2011

B2B Marketing Traction

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Why I Hate Fear-based Selling….

B2B Marketing Traction

I hate fear-based selling. You know, the kind where the seller lets you know one way or another that if you don’t buy their product or service you’re going to lose out. Fear-based selling gives me a horrible, irrational feeling that puts up my guard and reduces my trust level with the seller. I started my career in sales in the ERP software industry and went through some sales training – Xerox’ Personal Selling System and Solution Selling.

Cost 118
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Is It Time for a B2B Marketing Audit?

B2B Marketing Traction

Tweet. In today’s economy, every dollar you spend on marketing must produce results. Are you sure that the marketing you spend money on is working? As a new year approaches, this is a perfect time for a marketing audit. A marketing audit is a cost-effective review process where an expert looks at your marketing strategy, tactics, and results to make sure you are getting the best results possible without wasting money.

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How Dare You Call That Article a Whitepaper?

B2B Marketing Traction

If I see another online article masquerading as a whitepaper, I think I will scream! It is not OK to slap a few paragraphs together, upload the finished document, and invite visitors to your website to “Download Our Whitepaper.” It happened a few years ago. Whitepapers were seen as successful online marketing tactics for technology and research companies.

Buzz 106
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B2B Marketer: Are You a Hedgehog or a Fox?

B2B Marketing Traction

In business there are hedgehogs and there are foxes. I believe the concept applies to marketers, too. In the book Good to Great , Jim Collions wrote that great companies acted more like hedgehogs – simple, dowdy creatures that know one thing and stick to it. The comparison companies in the Good to Great study were more like foxes, wrote Collins, craft, cunning, fast and everchanging.

Planning 108
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What Do I Spend on My Marketing Budget? Part 1

B2B Marketing Traction

Blog entry excerpted from the Marketing chapter written by Jennifer Beever in The Book on Business from A to Z. Business owners and marketing managers often ask how to figure out what their marketing budget should be. Here’s a classic marketing consultant answer: “ It depends. “ Your marketing budget does depend on a variety of factors, including your lead generation return rates and lead-to-buyer conversion rates.

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B2B Marketing: Content Mills… …really?!

B2B Marketing Traction

OK! I get that the blog abandonment rate is 95%! It’s haaarrrd to think of messages to Tweet! …And that you need content to improve search engine performance and attract visitors to your website. But what happens when those visitors actually read the content on your site? Definition of Mill. mill /mil/- (noun) one that produces or processes people. or things mechanically or in large numbers.

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Marketing’s Perfect Storm: Copywriting, Optimization & Technology

B2B Marketing Traction

There’s a perfect storm brewing in successful marketing campaigns these days, and there are three key components: great copywriting, optimization, and use of technology. Just like in the book The Perfect Storm , in which author Sebastian Junger describes the confluence of three critical weather factors: warm air from a low-pressure system coming from one direction, a flow of cool and dry air generated by a high-pressure from another direction, and tropical moisture provided by Hurricane Gr